Pages

Saturday 18 May 2019

Public transport in Perth, why bother?

It's the same problem every Friday night, you do what is right and leave your car at home and catch public transport if you plan to drink. There is little incentive to catch public transport when the schedules are so poorly designed.


I am drinking with my father so I leave my vehicle at home and take a combination of buses and trains to work, two buses to my parents house and a bus and a train home. Transperth, in various forms has been operating for a very long time. After all this time operating, they still, can't seem to coordinate a bus and train connection.

So every Friday night, I am standing up at the bus stop on time waiting for the bus to arrive. At the very best, I can jump from the bus and run through the train station to just make the train - that is if every connection aligns. What really happens is that when the bus pulls into the station, we see the train pulling away and I have another 30 minutes to wait.

So I ask, after all this time of scheduling and coordinating buses and trains, why is Transperth unable to align a bus to a train with any degree of consistency? Patronage on public transport is down, more people elect to drive a motor vehicle than catch public transport.

This is despite a bus or train running to the same destination to where you need  to drive. The senior managers need to ask why, what can they do to reverse public opinion regarding bus and train patronage.

The service is lousy, the costs of running a vehicle are similar, the schedules except during peak period are lousy, safety is an issue and connections are worse. The question is, why would a person choose public transport instead of a private vehicle?

Really, there is no incentive and the system will be mostly utilised by people who do not have the means to afford a private vehicle, those too young to drive or those attempting to avoid a booze bus.

No comments:

Post a Comment